


Palest Watch

by pocket_infinity



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Emotionally Repressed, Fluff, I can't seem to put many tags on this one, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, but it is some boys Not Knowing How Feelings Work, there's one, this characterization of pk is also slightly different from my normal one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocket_infinity/pseuds/pocket_infinity
Summary: Centuries spent living, watching, protecting his city, and reporting all of it to the Pale King. Some form friendship was an inevitability, of course, but... well, with the years of time spent in idle conversation over the smallest of topics, the faint but distant affection reflected only in his eyes, the smooth curves and sharp points of his shell, how could Lurien not fall in love?What he wouldn't give to have one hour, one minute, one second where the King could love him back...Ah, but that was wishful thinking, wasn't it...Wasn't it?
Relationships: Lurien the Watcher/The Pale King (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86





	Palest Watch

**Author's Note:**

> heyyyyyyyyyy so im back almost a month later but here's a fic
> 
> also thanks to ruthlesslistener for 1) inspiring me to make this and 2) letting me use his Lurien design!! 
> 
> https://ruthlesslistener.tumblr.com/post/630819824106340352/some-sloppy-drawings-of-a-possible-lurien-body

The Pale King never quite managed to comprehend how, exactly, Lurien managed to live in the City of Tears full-time as he ventured through it, an umbrella hoisted above his head. The rain would be soaking the bottom of his robes if he hadn’t been keeping them just off the ground with the slightest bit of magic, but neither of the guards next to him had that luxury; their helmets were something closer to buckets as opposed to anything proper, at that point. He sighed quietly, keeping his expression blank as he marched on; he was a king after all, here for a recurring meeting with a colleague, and… 

He found himself debating if “friend” or “colleague” was a more accurate descriptor. He and Lurien had spent time together, yes: countless hours discussing things entirely unrelated to ruling—admiring the architecture of the city and the mathematical and physical advancements that led to its construction, discussing the mechanisms that caused certain mushrooms to glow, or the way light was focused and distorted through lenses (which, of course, always got Lurien the most excited.) They had once had a conversation in which they spent six hours discussing and testing the light refracting properties of a prism that Lurien had on a table in his parlor. It was intended to be set dressing.

He was a close friend, the wyrm decided upon as he reached the elevator up into the spire.

“Thank you,” he said with a small wave, dismissing both guards at his side. They nodded and turned to stand guard at the bottom of the elevator.

The ride up went exactly as one could expect it to: ride one elevator until it hits its end, transfer to the second elevator, ride that up, pass by the Watcher Knights, and take the final elevator up to the top. The rain gave a gentle undertone to the ride, though, providing something to focus on rather than just pure silence or hushed footsteps. Regardless, the door at the top of the spire waited before him, and he gave it three knocks before slipping his hands back into his robes. A lock clicked, and it swung open a moment later, Lurien’s butler already standing aside with a bow.

“Greets, my liege,” he said.

“Hello, Lucien,” the Pale King replied, stepping through the door. 

Lucien glanced up for a moment, eyes wide and wild with surprise, before he dipped his head back down and cleared his throat. “Master Lurien awaits you in the parlor.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” Lucien shut the door, twisting the lock a moment later.

The Pale King drifted through the entrance hallway and into the parlor, his eyes latching on to that familiar prism on the table for only a moment before shifting to Lurien himself.

“King,” he said, giving a slight bow.

“Watcher.”

“A pleasure to see you, as always,” the Watcher replied before beginning to slip towards a doorway. “If you would, we may progress towards the meeting room; it’s just this way.”

The wyrm responded with a gentle nod and followed Lurien through a brief hallway before the two arrived at the same meeting room as usual. Burgundy carpet, blue drapes, windows with metal detailing, and walls to match. A chandelier hang from the ceiling, illuminating the room with lumafly bulbs, and an eight-seated rectangular table sat in the center. The familiar tapping of rain filled the silence as both of them spent a moment staring out at the lights of the city.

“A-Apologies,” Lurien eventually said, taking a seat at one end of the table.

“What do you have to apologize for?” The Pale King inquired, sitting on the other end.

“Ah. I was merely distracted by the city, is all.”

“As was I,” the King responded, folding his upper hands together on the table. “I find it hard not to be, most days.” A soft smile covered his face.

“It  _ is _ majestic, isn’t it?” Lurien replied, sighing softly as he closed two of his eyes, leaving only the central third one to stare through his mask at the city. He would have been lying if he said it wasn’t partially to avoid staring at the wyrm’s smile.

“Indeed,” said wyrm replied, “but we have business to discuss.” The smile melted away.

“Of course,” Lurien replied, procuring a bundle of documents from within his cloak and setting them on the table. “As far as the past few months, the majority of things have been progressing normally in most departments. The silk trade with Deepnest has seen a marked improvement, as have crop trades from other sections of Hallownest. The Infection has slowed slightly as infrastructure for maintaining a waking state has gotten more into place. What is concerning, however, is the fact that bugs have begun to go missing with little trace.”

“Hm,” the Pale King nodded. “I presume you have a theory in creation already?”

“You know me well, my king,” Lurien replied, his heart giving a single pound as the informality.

The Pale King smiled, lowering Lurien’s heart back down to its usual level. “Would you be willing to share it, then?”

“Yes, of course,” Lurien said, sliding a few pieces of paper across the table; the Pale King hardly shifted his hand to catch them before spreading them out in front of himself. One of them was a map of the city littered with red dots, and a second pair of blue ones.

“As you can see,” he continued, “I’ve marked out the positions where bugs were last seen before disappearing in red, as well as their homes in blue. I think the pattern as to  _ where _ bugs are disappearing is fairly obvious—”

“The Soul Sanctum.”

“Precisely.”

“Do you think it a rogue group of experimenters within the sanctum, then?” The Pale King asked, looking up at Lurien.

“That was my initial assumption, yes, but if you look at the blue dots, you can see that nearly all of the victims come from lower-class neighborhoods. You and I both know that the majority of the Soul Sanctum is a diverse place; we’ve ensured it ourselves.”

“Indeed.”

“Even to the uppermost echelon, it has, historically speaking, been diverse. However…” Lurien continued, “with the newest appointed Soul Master, that has seen a shift. The second document reveals the current class distribution compared to the previous master’s.”

“Significantly skewed towards the upper classes,” the wyrm remarked.

“Indeed,” Lurien replied. “Of course, this could be the work of a few rogue students within the upper ranks, but that seems unlikely, given that the shift only began with the current master. Additionally, in my meetings with him, he has made some… unsavory comments.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed. Referring to lower classes as dirty offhandedly, the occasional classist joke. I’ve attempted to correct this attitude every time; however, in my consultations with other high-ranking scholars, it has come to my attention that he is even more extreme in his statements within the Soul Sanctum’s grounds.”

“So you believe the Soul Master is the culprit of these disappearances?” The Pale King asked.

“Not yet,” Lurien replied. “There isn’t any hard evidence, but he  _ would _ have the power to perform the kidnappings and cover them up afterwards.”

“Then what are you requesting?”

“The final document I gave you is a request for permission to investigate the Soul Sanctum and the Soul Master, specifically.”

The Pale King shifted the papers, revealing the request, and quickly assigned it, planting his brand in a flash of Soul before sliding the whole stack back to Lurien. “Is there anything else to report?”

“No, that covers everything that’s changed in the past few months,” Lurien said, his heart already beginning to sink into the depths, tugged down by familiar chains.

“Very well, then,” the wyrm replied, standing as his heart did the same. “I suppose I should be off, then, yes?”

Lurien curled his claws into his palm, pinching tighter as his heart began to race with an approaching decision. It couldn’t hurt to ask him to stay, could it? Well, perhaps it could, clinging to the King’s side at all times would hardly be a good look. But he hadn’t  _ actually _ asked the King to stick around or come visit for a long while now, had he? Perhaps it would just be better to—

“Actually,” Lurien said before his thoughts could protest any further, “if you’d like, I’ve been working on a new piece of art and would be honored to show it to you.”

The chains for the wyrm’s heart immediately came loose as a smile lit his face. “I think I’d like that,” he said.

Lurien let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as his heart fluttered wildly within his chest. “It’s in my studio; do you remember the way?” He stood, collecting the papers and tucking them back into his cloak.

“Of course,” the Pale King replied.

“I’ll see you there in a moment; I just have to put these papers in my office.”

“See you soon,” the wyrm said, the two of them parting ways momentarily. He crossed back through the parlor, moved through a brief hallway, and finally opened the door to Lurien’s studio.

On the right, as always, was Lurien’s telescope, its imposing figure overlooking the city. Just beside it sat a seemingly finished painting on an easel, the accompanying brush and palette set down nearby. The paints were scattered and stacked haphazardly near those. Along the other walls were other paintings hung up or stacked against the wall in a similarly chaotic manner, as well as the occasional blank canvas.

“Apologies for the mess,” Lurien said sheepishly as he appeared behind the Pale King, who startled at the sudden noise. “Sorry for scaring you, as well,” he mumbled, looking down as he blushed. Thank gods for the mask.

“No, I merely… wasn’t expecting you so quickly,” the wyrm replied, stepping into the room. “And the mess is quite alright. A bit refreshing, honestly.”

“I’m glad to hear you think so,” Lurien replied, the smooth serenity of his voice suppressing the increasingly aggressive flutter of his heart as he followed the Pale King into his studio. 

He made his way to the painting on the easel slightly ahead of the wyrm as the god began to stare at it. The King’s eyes flicked from the painting to Lurien to the window behind him then back to the painting.

“You painted the building across the street?” The Pale King asked, his head tilting slightly.

“Still painting it, as a matter of fact,” he replied, stepping around to the front of the easel as the King backed away. “I’ve… well, it has been something of a project for me to do on uneventful days.”

“Care to enlighten me?” The Pale King smiled.

“It’s the same building, just on different days,” Lurien said before gesturing up at a series of canvases on the wall. “I tried something similar a few months ago, painting the same building daily to mark the small changes that nobody seems to notice, but it felt lacking somehow, so I stopped working on that project, and started working on this one. It’s the same general idea, but instead of multiple canvases, I’ve just been painting over one again and again with lighter strokes each time so that the past levels don’t get totally blocked out.”

Sure enough, the canvas on the easel bore the marks of tiny change, incremental change. A windowsill showing one flower pot, just at different times. Windows that were both open and closed, drapes pulled and not, figures both present and not, all fading into each other, into something greater.

“Does it have a title?” The Pale King asked, glancing at Lurien.

“I just gave it one yesterday, as a matter of fact!” Lurien gently pinched the top of the canvas and tilted it forward to read a single word scrawled on the back: “History.”

“A thousand incremental changes…” the Pale King said. “The minutiae of every second.”

“Precisely,” Lurien replied.

“How long have you been painting it?” The wyrm’s smile widened.

“Three weeks, if memory serves,” Lurien replied.

“Incredible…”

“Thank you,” the Watcher nodded.

“No, truly, Lurien…” the Pale King said, turning to face him. “This piece is remarkable. The precision of each day painted is magnificent, but the layering… your brush work is something else to have captured the way it can all blur together.”

“I was hoping that you would like it,” Lurien replied, taking a moment to stare at the Pale King, his pale shell tinted ever so slightly blue by the ambient lighting of the city and dotted by the half-shadows projected from the water droplets on the window. For all the art he’d made, the sum of his works would, for lack of a better term, pale in comparison to the King.

“What was your process?” The Pale King asked, shaking Lurien from his trance.

“I- well…” he began, moving to look out the window. “I simply looked out at the building and painted what I saw every day, really. Shifting from one windowsill to the next and painting it slightly faded.”

“You were clearly meticulous in your work,” the Pale King said, turning to the Watcher. “And I suppose you might know that building well by now, yes?”

“I suppose I had an eye for detail with it,” he replied.  _ Or three… _ he thought, holding in a laugh.

“Could you perhaps find what is different about them today for me?” The Pale King asked. Lurien’s heart jumped as he turned calmly at the request.

“I would love to,” Lurien replied, turning back to stare out the window. He squinted, immediately picking out no fewer than twelve differences across the building. “Here, I’ll find them on the telescope for you,” he said, beginning to move towards it.

“No need; just tell me where to look,” the Pale King said, coming to stand in front of the telescope.

“From the top left, go… three windows down and one across,” Lurien announced, pausing to count. “See the flower pot?”

“With the rose?”

“It was an orchid yesterday—and it looks like a different pot, too. And the curtains four down and three right? The blue ones? Those were red a week ago.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. Two up and one left, that’s a new railing. Immediately on the left of that, they seem to have switched from candlelight to lumafly.”

“The fact that you notice all of these things…” The Pale King asked, stepping away from the telescope and looking at the Watcher, his eyes soft. “It’s remarkable, Lurien. You are something special.”

“It’s all just practice, my king…” Lurien said, looking away sheepishly.

“Perhaps it is,” the wyrm responded, “but it remains a skill that you, alone, seem to have harnessed to its full potential, and that is without mentioning the way you transcribed it to canvas.”

“Ah!” Lurien replied, his central eye lighting up as he looked back at the Pale King. “That reminds me: I used a new technique for the light and shadow with this piece!”

“Please, go on then,” the Pale King said.

Their conversation only continued to snowball from there. The two went from painting techniques to the architecture of the city to the properties of the metals—they still could never agree on which specific alloy was best for arches—to the best way to make tea after Lucien delivered a pot to them. Seconds blended into minutes, and minutes into hours, and soon, what was supposed to be a 90-minute meeting had gone on for eight hours.

“Oh gods,” the Pale King said when he finally checked the clock.

“Hm? Oh  _ gods _ ,” Lurien agreed when he, too, realized the time.

“I apologize for the sudden departure, Lurien, but I do need to get back to the palace—”

“No, no, I understand; I have a mountain of paperwork to get through—”

“If it’s alright with you, though,” the Pale King said, looking right into Lurien’s central eye, “I’d very much like to pick up this conversation tomorrow.”

“Absolutely,” Lurien said before he had a moment to think. “I have no meetings scheduled tomorrow. Arrive whenever you feel right.”

“Thank you,” the King said with a smile before slipping out.

* * *

Later that night, Lurien found himself staring up at the ceiling from his bed, unable to shake an image from earlier that day. Every time he closed his eyes, even just to blink, the sight of the Pale King, bathed in the city’s blue light, appeared before him. The smooth shell, the ever so subtle glow, the nearly imperceptible shifts in his eyes when he was happy or intrigued or concerned… they were burned into the center of his mind, refusing to leave. He sat up in bed, sighing. This was hardly the first time this had happened, after all, and it wasn’t going away until he vented it out. Affection was truly a stubborn brat of a feeling, wasn’t it?

The Watcher slid out of his bed with a quiet sigh before walking to his door, slowly twisting the handle all the way before opening it, and stepping through. He repeated the same process in reverse as he closed it, ensuring that the lack didn’t make a single click , before he slipped away. Any noise produced by his gentle steps was well drowned out by the ambient rain as he moved through the halls until he finally reached his studio.

Snatching a pencil from one of the many crevices he’d left one in—this place really did need to get tidied up, didn’t it?—he took a canvas and set it upon the easel. A sigh left his body as he reached up to rub his eyes, only for him to panic for a moment as he realized he wasn’t wearing his mask, though that panic faded a moment later when he remembered that it was the dead of night. If anyone managed to see him without his mask, they still wouldn’t see much in this light. Maybe just the blue outlines around his eyes or the gold around his wrists; he  _ was _ wearing a nightgown, after all.

Ah, but the sketch. He lifted the pencil to the canvas and more or less let the lines draw themselves. It came more as instinct to him, the slight curve of each horn, the little bumps around the base of the crown, the roundness of the eyes, the point of the chin. The features were so well balanced, as well; he couldn’t have envisioned a more beautiful work of art if he tried.

Lurien found himself blushing as he finished sketching the head. He took a single step back and squinted at the canvas, searching for any significant faults or failures in his recreation. The darkness was… less than ideal, yes, but it was hardly the first time he’d sketched in the dark. Failing to find a fault, he moved back in and continued with the slight bit of the robes he had yet to do. They, along with the vague outline of rain in the background, went by in a flash, but that twisting warmth in Lurien’s heart still hadn’t vanished yet. With another, much colder (and honestly somewhat annoyed) sigh, he reached for a few of his lighter paints and tapped the lumafly lantern above his head. Sketching could be done in the dark, but the delicacy of painting required light. He let out a disgruntled, sharp huff, rubbing his eyes again as he grabbed a brush. He’d gone longer without sleeping; he could do this.

At the very least, he was actually  _ making _ something with  _ some _ beauty out of his… improper impulses, rather than simply staring up at the ceiling in a fantasy for three hours. He spread a bit of grey onto a nearby palette and wetted his brush.

* * *

The wyrm let out a subtle yawn in the elevator as it rushed up to the Watcher’s Spire. Glancing up for a moment, he began a step forward, the elevator coming to a stop just as his foot came down, his knock sounding on the metal door a moment later. A loud thud sounded off far to his left, along with a few rushed words he didn’t quite catch, and Lucien opened the door a few moments later.

“Welcome back, my liege,” he said with another bow.

“Thank you, Lucien,” the Pale King responded as he stepped in.

“Master Lurien is a bit… preoccupied at the moment, but I can show you to the studio, if you’d like.”

“If you would,” the King replied, gesturing down the hall with a hand. “And preoccupied with what, may we ask?”

“There was a mild painting mishap, is all,” Lucien replied, leading the wyrm down the hallway and into the parlor before going into the left hallway.

“We see.”

“Of course, your majesty,” Lucien said as they finally reached the studio. “Would you like some tea?”

“Green tea would be preferable.”

“Right away, my king,” Lucien replied, bowing once more before leaving as the King stepped into the studio.

The wyrm gazed around at the messy space for a moment, smiling at the familiarity of it, before moving towards the easel. A blank canvas stood upon it, but just to the side of the easel, there were no fewer than six different paints all left unscrewed, a small pool of paint having formed next to one of them (likely from the painting mishap mentioned earlier). On the right, additionally, was a palette with dozens of colors already mixed—monotone and blue gradients, mostly. And yet the canvas sat there without a single hint of paint.

The wyrm narrowed his eyes for a moment, sweeping the room once more, until his eyes locked to a new—or at least recently shifted—canvas, resting with only its edges touching something. He moved closer, running his hands along the back of the frame it was stretched on. The word “Beloved” was signed at the top. He picked it up from the inside of the frame before turning it around and gently grasping the outer edges, taking care to not press his fingers onto the canvas itself.

A painted image of himself stared back. The wyrm blinked twice before flipping it back around to check the title again. “Beloved,” it still read, clear as day. He swallowed a knot in his throat as his heart sped up, and he turned the painting back around to stare at it. The line work was as exquisite as ever, of course, but… the work was already fully painted, or at least close enough that he couldn’t tell the difference.

He took a moment to gently tap near the edge of the work, finding the paint wet, even down to the base. So Lurien would have painted between their last meeting and now, which left—he checked the clock above the entrance—only 18 hours. 

He flipped the painting back over, checking the title for the third time. “Beloved.” The word echoed around his mind, urging him to say it himself, to test its rhythm, its ebb and flow. His heart was wilder than an Ash Hopper as it repeated over and over. Beloved, beloved, beloved. It was him, of course; the painting was about  _ him, _ but the word  _ beloved… _ what context was it meant in? A subservient tone seemed far out of the question, given the centuries of familiarity, but neither had he known Lurien to be one to say it platonically. Perhaps he was being hyperbolic? Metaphorical? Neither definition even  _ remotely _ applied to the word, but the wyrm’s mind scrambled for any explanation it could reach to avoid the one he wished for most: romantic.

Just the thought of the word made his heart skip like a stone across water. But it could not be romantic, of course, because there was no romance within their friendship, and there never had been. It was platonic and business in its entirety, of course, and most  _ certainly _ so from his end. The brief flutter of his heart whenever he saw Lurien without his mask, the warmth he felt just from his presence, the way he longed for their conversations in dull meetings, the desperate craving to spend more time, it was all… 

Oh, who was he kidding. It was hardly platonic.

The thought saw his breaths accelerate and deepen as his clutch on the painting strengthened. “Beloved.” No, but of course, Lurien would never fall in love with him; he was a  _ king. _ Lurien wouldn’t. 

Perhaps it was meant to represent the perspective of the people or something of the like, but no matter what, it most certainly was not—

“M-my king?” Lurien asked from the doorway. The wyrm spun to face him, the painting still in his grasp. The Watcher’s mask was haphazardly slapped onto his face, an antenna sticking out from the top of it with a streak of white paint staining it, only highlighted by its gentle twitching.

“Yes?” The Pale King’s voice rang out, smooth and regal as ever while his eyes darted between Lurien and the painting.

“I-” Lurien choked, pulling in a gasp as the two stared. “I see you found a painting of mine.”

The wyrm cleared his throat. “Indeed I did. I was wondering about something related to it, as a matter of fact…”

“By all means, please ask,” Lurien’s voice wavered ever so slightly as he spoke.

“Wherever did you get the title from?”

Lurien’s entire body locked up. He couldn’t even bring himself to breathe for a few moments as he scrambled for something plausible to say,  _ something _ that wouldn’t incriminate him, until he eventually came up blank on all fronts. With a deep breath and a shaking hand, he removed his mask to look into the Pale King’s eyes with all three of his own.

“I…” he began. “I’m sorry,” he glanced away.

“Sorry for what?” The King asked.

“The name, it’s… it’s how I feel about you—” the Watcher began once again, “and I’m sorry because I  _ know _ it’s wrong, I do, and I promise you: it doesn’t have to get in the way of anything between us. We can just forget this happened and move on, and it will not change a single thing, I promi-”

“E-excuse me for a moment,” the wyrm interrupted, setting the painting down and moving through the studio’s door. “I… I will return shortly.”

“M-my king, wait!” Lurien called, reaching out for a moment, only to stop halfway through the motion. He let his mask fall to the ground as he resigned himself to cradling his face in his hands as he leaned against and slid down the wall.

* * *

The Pale King, needless to say, did not return shortly. He did not return at all, in fact, for five days following the incident, nor did he send a letter, nor did he send anyone to deliver a message.

Lurien seemed to take rather well to lying in his bed for hours and canceling meetings during that time. He retreated into a further reclusive state than he’d gone into before, seeming to vanish for the first day after. The only sign that he was alive, sometimes, was a gentle weeping or hushed speaking coming from his chamber. He refused to see anyone, even Lucien, for two days after, so all food was left outside his door. It would disappear and then reappear mostly eaten a few hours later, usually. When a total of four days passed, and he finally let Lucien into his room, but nobody else was welcomed.

Eventually, after six days, word finally arrived from the palace in the form of a letter. Upon hearing about it, Lurien finally emerged from his room to take the letter, despite how his heart twisted and how he simply wanted to keel over on the floor as he prepared for his upcoming termination from the position of Watcher. He locked his door the moment he returned to his room and left the letter on his nightstand, putting off opening it for as long as he could manage (which came to a total of four minutes and forty-three seconds.)

He sighed, preparing himself for the whatever harsh rebuke he was about to encounter within as he cut the envelope open and removed the letter inside:

_ To My Dearest Watcher… _ it began, and Lurien already found his anxiety crashing in waves, his heart seeming to jump from hyperactive to dead still as he moved through every word.

True to his prediction, he did cry—quite a lot, actually. Through the whole letter, in fact.

But a smile lit his face the entire time, only to be cemented by the final line:

_ If you would like, Lurien, I would love for you to come to the palace some time so that we might spend a bit of time together. _

_ Best Regards, _

_ The Pale King _

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhhhhhhh i cannot write repressed characters with even remote ease. how do y'all live. i do not get it.


End file.
